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Coach,
I’m sure this is the million dollar question. But I can’t seem to find it on your site. I noticed something lacking in my oldest son’s high school team’s loss last night. Gas in the tank. With their studies, games, and practices there is not much time for more exercise. I deduced that most of the kids are probably only putting in 97% at practice. 100% would be nice, but we all know that practice is the time for 110%. What are your thoughts on how to convey this to the kids?

I know you asked Coach Nielsen, but I’ll weigh in since I’ve been dealing with this on our high school team this season.

First of all, I never ask for more than 100% because the only way to give more than that is to cheat somewhere else. I constantly tell the kids I want 100% effort, 100% of the time.

Second, if they aren’t responding to group motivational efforts, call a couple players in for meetings with the coaches and lay out your expectations for them. I routinely ask players if they think they can give more than they’ve been showing. If they say yes, then I challenge them to do it and hold them accountable if they don’t.

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Both assists and penalty minutes we get from the official score sheet that the league scorekeepers maintain during the game, so we don’t really need to track them on the bench. We can pretty much keep track of assists and penalties in our head as the game goes along so we know who is having a good game.